Sissi the Empress

At the India Theater, Sissi the Empress is on stage, the story of the restless and tormented life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, commonly known as Sissi.

The play is divided into several sections, each highlighting aspects of the Empress's character and thinking, which concern not only politics but also art, philosophy, and sexuality. The portrait, which gradually comes together like a puzzle, portrays an empress who was unconventional for her time and deeply frustrated by the rigidity of the Viennese Court. At the same time, it also reveals the great poetry and desire for freedom of a woman who felt locked in a “gilded cage”.

This reconstruction reveals a personality endowed with a deep painful sensitivity, even addressing the most delicate social issues: from the suffering of ethnic minorities to the oppression of the proletariat. Anorexic, soon to be mourning the deaths of two of her children, anti-imperialist, and outraged by the atrocities of the wars raging around her, Sissi devoted herself almost obsessively to the care of her body, her hairstyle, and the choice of clothes and shoes, which acted as a sort of barrier against the sense of death that hovered around her.

A prophet of the impending collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the empress shows us that world as a mirror of our own time, in a present where the wounds of oppression, racism, and war are more raw than ever. Sissi the Empress is therefore a play in which the voice of Sissi, empress in spite of herself, emerges more clearly than ever, resonating to the present day.

Written and directed by Roberto Cavosi; starring Federica Luna Vincenti and with Marco Manca, Claudia A. Marsicano, Miana Merisi, Maria Giulia Scarcella.

Photo credits: Gianmarco Chieregato